Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 512 — page 25: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

his gold to lead! oe ee ee _ Captain Velvet’s Big Stake. 25 The light fell squarely on the door, and the! Dun Duff caught the blackened hand and polished knob glittered wherever it was touched. | pried the fingers open. To Dun Duff’s amazement the detective fell to | Something dropped out and rolled at his feet. work on the combination. | He picked it up and held it toward the light. “You can’t open that door, [tistime wasted!” __*‘ It’s some of the wealth of No Man’s Ground!” exclaimed Captain Duff. | he cried, for the detective saw that the find was ‘* Who told you?” | a nugget of gold whose shape told that it had ‘*T have tried it for myself.” | passed through the mountain mint, wherever “You? So soon after becoming alcalde, cap- , that was, tain?’ laughed Gideon Goldbar. ‘“‘I used to ' Upon one of its sides were the letters ‘* Col. know thes» kind of locks like a boy knows his’ B. B.,” which they knew stood for the Croesus primer, A4s! the tumbler dropped then. Did | of California. ' you not hear it. Now, I think I have it.” Beyond the men huddled together in violent At that moment the detective seized the death were the remains of a fire. The smoke brizbt knob with both hands and pulled back. | had ascended to the ceiling and colored it, but T» Dun Duff’s wonder the heavy door swung | no vestiges of its smell remained. oj}en, and as he fell back the lamp almost ** Shall we see all?” asked Dun Duff. ‘ This is the treasury of No Man’s Ground.” ‘** Let us see all,” was the reply. ** After that, what?” There was no answer. The a gr was falling upon the faces of both men, and it seemed to reveal that their thoughts were the same. At any rate, Dun Duff looked at the nugget he still held and then tossed it above bis head, ‘*T guess we’re all here for this stuff, eh, captain?” be laughed. ‘‘ You say that you are Mona’s sleuth-hcund, that you want to put the dagger together again and to place it in her hands whole. After all, the hunt means a for- tune; it means the possession of No Man's wealth. diopped from bis hands! CHAPTER XXXII. SLEUTH AND COOL-HEAD. THE two men looked at one another fora second, Dun Duff could not drive the hue of astonish- ment from his face and there was a quiet smile at the detective’s lips. ‘** How did you get thecombination? I thought that was Captain Nevada’s secret,” exclaimed Duff at length. ‘*I have pares with locks before,” was the answer, ‘* But come, captain. Are we going in to look at the treasure-room of No Man’s Ground?” Is it not true?” ‘*T am ready.” ‘*As you say,it means gold; but it bas a Gideon Goldbar stepped aside and pointed to | deeper significance than that. Mona, of Sacra- the door. | mento, wants her own more than money. What Without more ado, the man from the South | to her, nearly blind and cruelly wronged, is the entered the crypt and soon had his companion | wealth of the world?” at his heels. ** You forget the other woman,” The detective stopped at the door a moment, ** The Queen of Darkness?” and when he rejoined him, he said: ‘Yes, You forget that the writing on the ‘*T have provided against the schemes of out- | Wall of this death crypt calls her Colonel Bluff’s siders. The door may be sbut, but it cannot be | wife. What think you of that?” locked. We are safe now,” There was a cold sneer at Dun Duff's lips. The two rivals went forward, the sleuth car-| | “‘ His wife, as you say,” answered the detec- rying the light so that it fell upon the walls, | tive. ‘‘As Mona’s sleuth, I have run down showing them here and there, more trails than one. I bave discovered what All at once Dun Duff came toa halt and ut- | you have doubtless known for years—*that Col- tered an excfamation of surprise. onel Bluff’s marriage to Inez, the Guadaloupe ‘* What is it, captain?” beauty, was a false one, that when he saw Mona ‘*Did you know that inscription was bere?” | he went to her.” he cried, pointing to the wall before them, ‘‘Is| Captain Velvet looked at the man before him that Boss Nevada’s work?” and noticed his sinister countenance, Gideon held the lamp above his head and the ‘* (io on, captain; you are doing very well,” following moment he read balf-aloud and half te | grinned Dun Duff. himself words like these: ** You know that, shortly after Colonel Bluff’s “The person called the Queen of Darkness is the infatuation for Mona, who knew nothing about wife of Colonel Bluff, the Crippled Croesus of Sacra- | mez, Inez disappeared. She was seized one mento!” night by a number of masked men, who took her on horseback into the mountains, from which time she has been dead to the world. Then came the tragedy of Bonanza Ranch, which opened Mona's eyes to the iniquities of her hus- band. The masked man who daggered Colonel Bluff and left him a cripple for life by severing the cords of his limbs, thought he had left noth- ing undone, The dagger that broke in the nabob’s. body the Jast stroke, left him a point which he has to-day, Mona has the rest of the blade; but ever since that eventful night the hilt has been missing.” Dan Duff, who was standing near the wall during this recital, leaned against it quietly folding his arms and looked at his companion. ‘You've kept the trail well, captain,” he smiled. ‘' Nothing seems left but the finding of the dagger-hilt.” ‘*And the child of Mona and Colonel Bluff, who was taken from her soon after the tragedy.” ‘* Ho! I had forgotten her. I wonder where she is?” ““Stand there and say that, if it pleases you, Captain Duff,” responded the detective. ‘‘ You know where she is. You know that you could go from this crypt straight to the child of the woman who waits in the dark room.” Dun, Duff shrugged his shoulders. ‘It seems that we are understanding one an- other,” langhed he. ‘* Captain, you are here to find the girl, to piece the dagger and to throw “a wealth of No Man’s Ground into Mona’s Dan Duff gave vent to a bitter laugh when the sleuth reached the last word. ‘*That is not much of a revelation to us, I think, captain,” he observed, *‘ You have heard of the Queen of Darkness?” 4s Yes.” ** She is the person Boss Nevada raved about when he was out of his head.” ‘That is true. But who wrote that on the wall? Not the ex-master of Satan City, now no one knows where,” Dun Duff looked at the inscription. ** There is apie, under it—words written with a different colored stone. Your light doesn’t shine on them just right as you hold it. A little more to the left—there!” As Gideon shifted the lamp, Dun Duff leaned toward the wall, and witb one hand on it, seem- ed to study a certain spot for a few seconds. ‘“My God! there has been death here!” he suddenly exclaimed, drawing back, ‘ Listen to this, Captain Velvet,” and turning to the stone again, he read: ‘* We three have been shut in here by some enemy on the outside. The noxious vapors that come up from somewhere are slowly killing us. The Tiger is nearly gone now. May the blight of heaven over- take the discoverer of No Man’s Ground, So turn LAS,”’ The detective looked about him with a cry he could not-suppress, when Dun Duff zanchad: the scrawled signature underneath the words, ‘‘ They said that Lolas and the two others had deserted,” remarked the master of No Man’s Ground, turning from the wall, ‘‘On the con- trary, they are here.” * But where?” ** Let us see.” Once more the two men were going deeper in- to the crypt. Suddenly the detective stopped and swept his light before bis face. ‘‘ The runaways are here,” he smiled, looking up into his companion’s face. On the ground before them, thrown together as it were, lay the bodies of three men, Their bronze faces had got a swarthier hue, and their hands were clinched like the hands of men in the death agony. . ‘* This one is Lolas,” said Dun Duff, touching the uppermost body with his finger. ‘‘ The others [cannot separate.” . __ drama, In cases of this kind the weakest goes ‘Entombed alive! After writing his curse on | to the wall. If I am the weakest, there is no the wall, Lolas must have staggered back here | other place for me. Look out, Captain Velvet, to die. There is something in the fellow’s | sleuth of the tigress in the dark!” band.” The next instant the figure of Dan Duff, agile a thee was no response, ‘*'You will want to denounce me to the men of No Man’s Ground, This will be the next card you throw.” ‘* T have not said so.” ia 0, you have not said so,” was the echo, ‘You do not need to say so. I know your mis- sion almost as well as you know it yourself,” Did the detective read what was about to take place in the eyes that looked into his with all the rising hatred of a tiger’s? Did he see the sudden change of countenance from pale to red and back again, and read thereon the fierce determination of a ruffian who saw his game in danger? Captain Velvet, this world is too big for both of us to win in!” suddenly cried Dun Duff, I must congratulate you on your success thus far. [ think one of us ought to drop out of the SS SS sess as a cat, leaped from the stone wall of thecrypt and the lamp ss from the detective’s hand threw its expiring light upon two men strug- gling for the final stakes of the great California ame, ° The sleuth had brought Dun Duff to the treas- ury to show him the wealth there and to tell him, away from the men over whom he had ob- tained a mastery, that he had not hunted for Mona in vain. The light went out almost as soon as the lamp struck the ground, and in a twinkling the cav- ern was wrapped in darkness. The eye of the owl could hardly have seen the two figures as they swayed back and forth over the floor of the cavern, They were the forms of men in deadly combat, hand-to-hand in the Stygian chamber, now against the wall, now ten feet away. All at once they broke loose. The detective was thrown tothe ground by the suddenness of the separation, and when he recovered he put out bis hand and touched solid stone, Panting over his struggle he leaned against the wall and recovered. Where Dun Duff was he did not know. If he could have pierced the darkness he would have seen the bonanza plotter creeping down the same wall with his boots in his hand. Dun Duff held his breath as be proceeded, ¢ He had nothing but the wall itself to guide im, At last be reached the balf-closed door of the crypt, but ere he went further he looked back and listened. He recollected that the detective bad said that he bad fixed the lock so that the iron portal could not be shut tight, as some one bad shut it on the three men dead in the cavern, With his fingers he worked im the dark till he found a little steel bar which he moved from left to right, ‘This is the agent he brought into play,” he exclaimed. ‘‘ Now, Captain Velvet, I have you in a trap of your own setting. In another moment he was beyond the door. lf any one could have seen bis eyes at that mo- ment they would have fell back in borror. Suddenly he caught the heavy door with both hands and swung it shut. There wasa click, and it was solid. ** Now, by the heavens! I am master of No Man’s, and the game is mine!” he cried. CHAPTER XXXITTI. ‘““WE WANT You!” Dun DvurF left the mine of the crypt with the keenest triumph he had ever known knock- ing at his heart. He had shut in among the treasures of No Man’s Ground the detective who bad followed him from Sacramento to the shades of death. He could now go back to tbe man he had mastered, to Colonel Bluff the cripple left in the cabin too much under his thumb to betray him What would he tell the pards of Satan City concerning Gideon Goldbar? Ah! be would attend to that, The cool-head went almost straight to the maimed Croesus. He looked in at the window, but the lights were out and he saw no one. ‘“*T must see what has become of him,” he muttered. ‘*The man can crawl and his in- firmities have not injured his head.” _ Dun Duff touched the latch gently and went in, Though he could not see any one he was sure that he was not the only person in the cabin. If he could have pierced the darkness he would have seen the very man he was looking for stretched on a cot against the wall. Colonel Bluff was nov asleep. His eyes were wide-open and his ears were on the alert, ‘‘Colonel, ve a bit of news,” spoke Dun Duff leaning forward, one of his hands touching the table which it had found by chance, ‘* What is it?” There was a singular eagerness in the tones heard in the dark, but they belonged to the Na- bob of Sacramento. ‘The alien has gone away.” A momentary silence followed this piece of information. ‘**Gideon Goldbar, eh?” asked Colonel Bluff. ‘* The detective—Mona’s sleuth.” ‘* Where is his pard? You have said that but one has gone away.” ‘‘The pard is nothing. The master was the man we wanted out of the road.” ‘* When did he go?” ‘* A while ago.” ** On horseback?” ** He walked.” Dun wondered if Colonel Bluff believed this, and at that particular moment he would have given a good deal for a glimpse of his face. Did he know that he and the detective had gone away together? Had the pards of Satan ty—the men whom he bad ordered to Shasta Sam’s to await bis return—told him about the parley and the failure to enforce the code?” ‘¢ What time is it, captain?’ came the voice of Colonel Bluff once more through the darkness, ‘It is past midnight.” (00) SS) (E(0) AMILUCS bet = a =—_ -— TALS | (oy se